Irony, Thy Name Is John Gage
by Dianne
Summary: Gage moves to L.A. to become a fireman but will he eat the smoke or will the smoke eat him? Written for a challenge a long time ago. Just a silly little one shot.


This one shot was inspired from a writing assignment I got from a writing club with the prompt being, 'write a story about being trapped under a mattress with a dead body on it.' Yeah, yuck, but can you blame me for thinking of John Gage for this one?

XXXX

This could only happen to me. I move out to California three months ago to join the fire department and before I can even graduate into the department as a rescue man, I'm in need of rescue myself. How embarrassing.

I didn't exactly come here with money falling out of my pockets. I had to take whatever apartment I could get that didn't need first and last month's rent. But it was fully furnished with crabby old ladies upstairs and a broken elevator.

I went to bed exhausted from training, smoke from a controlled burn tickling my throat. So that's why I didn't smell the smoke that wafted down from the crazy old lady upstairs. I thought I was dreaming about work. In my defence, I put the fire out single-handed and saved a damsel in my dreams.

Yet there was still smoke…

I cracked an eye open.

"Fire!" I screamed like a little girl, which I will deny if I get out of here. I was tired, I couldn't help it. I wasn't a fireman yet.

The fire was beginning to lick the edges of the carpet near the windows of my tiny bedroom. Probably the stupid old lady downstairs who smokes six packs a day died or something. Finally. And since she couldn't take me out with the lung cancer that billowed up from my balcony any time I dared open my doors, she chose to burn me out.

The door to my apartment is hot. I can't go out that way. I see most of the residents have probably made it okay because there's tons of people standing across the street in night clothes.

I stand on the balcony in my boxers and a tee shirt as my bed catches fire. The curtains are next and I vaguely wonder if I'm still dreaming. No one can have that much irony in their life. Right?

Okay, I'm nineteen, fit and I'm a guy, not a wimpy kid. I can do this. I can jump. It's only three stories. Yeah. One. Two. Three. Oh hell. I'm a wimpy kid. A spark catches fire on my tee shirt and that's it. The sirens are too far off. But the good thing is, there's so much smoke, I can no longer see the ground. And the smoke is choking me so I hope to pass out before I land. One. Two.

"!"

Okay, my leg snapped. I can barely breathe but the air that is coming in is at least fresh. It's been raining, ground's muddy. Good thing too, cause that thing my mom always said about wearing clean underwear, yeah, not so much. I'm just kidding. So my sense of humour's still intact. Mom would be so proud, clean underwear. Check. Thank God.

THWACK!

The world goes dark. It's hard to breath. I hadn't tried to move since landing but now I want to try and I can't. There's this weight on me. I know from those stupid commercials that a person feels weight in their chest when they're having a heart attack, but I'm only nineteen, so that can't be it. Can it? The sirens that only seconds ago sounded closer now seem further away. Everything seems further away. The fresh air that I was so damned happy about even in the spoonfuls I was able to gasp in, is nearly gone. And there it is again. I wish I could open my eyes.

THWACK!

"Squad eleven, get that jumper off the mattress, there's a kid under there!"

What. The. Hell.

So I'm lying here under a damned mattress! Well, at least that statement got my eyes open. An arm dropped over the edge of the mattress into my view suddenly. Yellowed, wrinkly fingers unclasped, a still-lit hand-rolled cigarette rolled toward me choking me adding insult to injury. It's her! She's finally killed me. I guess she's not a wimpy kid like me because the fall killed her. Or maybe the damn smoke jarred loose from the inside of her plastered lungs and choked her out finally. Okay, I'm bitter. So sue me. She wasn't a nice old lady like the one in Four B I carry groceries for.

"Sir, you're going to be okay. We're going to get them off you."

He says 'them' like the mattress is alive.

Oh gross! I hear the old lady being peeled from the mattress and the smell of the fire mixes with another acrid assault. Oh man! Her cigarette lit the mattress on fire!

"He…help!" I weez. The mattress is lifted from my body and water rains down on me, freezing my chest in mid gulp of air that I don't think would have gone all the way down anyway.

Someone shoves an oxygen mask over my face and my eyes close as the cigarette is stepped on by one of the firemen. Now both of them are dead. Long live me. I hope.


End file.
